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Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

If you're not feeling this, you're doing it wrong. You see them in comment sections. You see them on social media. You hear it come out of the mouth of friends, family members.

Sometimes it's casual, other times it's uncouth and politically incorrect. Sometimes it's couched in intellectualization or economic analysis.

But it doesn't matter the form. It's always a bit stunning to hear. Oh, don't worry about it. They say the mortality rate of COVID-19 is actually really low.

The media is just exaggerating. Oh, a lot of these people were old. It would have died anyway.

History affords us few insights into the emotional life of Marcus Aurelius. But we know that he once broke down in public at the mere mention of all the Romans who had lost their lives in the Antonin plague.

It was these tragic victims, young and old family and strangers alike, who he was thinking of even in his last moments.

Even as his friends grieved for him, he took the time to remind them to consider all the people who had been affected by this deadly scourge.

The stoic is not an unfeeling robot. The stoic is not callous or indifferent to suffering. They are strong and tough and can withstand their own suffering, to be sure.

But nowhere in the stoic teachings does it encourage you to close off your heart to the pain and suffering of others.

In fact, the stoic idea of sympathy is built around the idea that we are obligated to care not to dismiss what happens to other people.

Just because you're young, just because you're healthy, because your business is fine, or because it's in the interest of your industry or political party to downplay the pandemic, that doesn't mean you get to pretend that this isn't happening, that it hasn't happened.

You have to feel this. Feel it like Marcus did. You can't close your heart. You can't lie to yourself with statistics. You can't deceive yourself with magical thinking.

This is a tragedy of epic proportions. This has been devastating for people, for your neighbors, for your fellow human beings. They need you to understand that. They need your help. And as a stoic, you owe it to them.

If you're looking for ways to keep these stoic lessons with you, check out our daily stoic store. These are all items that were designed to embody stoicism, to help you carry the stoic practice with you.

We wanted to make things that we would actually use ourselves. That's why we don't make t-shirts or stickers or wristbands. We make things of super high quality that we stand behind that we think are awesome, that embody stoicism.

We have our Memento Mori Medallion, our Mourafati Medallion. We have prints with Marcus Aurelius quotes and so much more. You can check out dailystoic.com slash store for more. Thanks for listening and see you soon.

Hey, prime members. You can listen to the daily stoic early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.

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